Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey ( mə-RY-ə; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Songbird Supreme", Carey is known for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, signature use of the whistle register, and diva persona. An influential figure in music, she was ranked as the fifth-greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023.

Carey rose to fame with her eponymous debut album (1990) and became the only artist to have their first five singles reach number one in the US, from "Vision of Love" to the title track of her second album Emotions (1991). She achieved international success with the best-selling albums Music Box (1993) and Daydream (1995), before adopting a new image with hip hop-inflected sounds; introduced on the remix to "Fantasy" with Ol' Dirty Bastard, and later embraced on Butterfly (1997). With eleven consecutive years of US number-one singles, Carey was named by Billboard as the Artist of the Decade. Following a career decline, she made a comeback with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century. She has released six more albums to critical success.

Carey's life and career have received widespread media coverage. She has been dubbed the "Queen of Christmas" due to the enduring popularity of her holiday music, particularly Merry Christmas (1994), one of the best-selling holiday albums. Its lead single, "All I Want for Christmas Is You", is the longest-running number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100 and the best selling holiday single by a woman. Outside of music, she co-founded Camp Mariah with the Fresh Air Fund in 1994; starred in films such as Glitter (2001), Precious (2009), The Butler (2013), and The Lego Batman Movie (2017); and served as a judge on American Idol (2013). Her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Carey is one of the best-selling music artists, with over 220 million records sold worldwide. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Her accolades include five Grammy Awards, a Grammy Global Impact Award, 10 American Music Awards, 19 World Music Awards, 14 Billboard Music Awards, and MTV's Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008. She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist (19), a female songwriter (18), and a female producer (15), spending a record 101 weeks atop the chart. "One Sweet Day" and "We Belong Together" were ranked by Billboard as the most successful songs of the 1990s and 2000s, respectively. Carey is one of the highest-certified artists in the US, with four Diamond certifications.

Early life

Carey was born on March 27, 1969, in Huntington, New York, on Long Island. Her name is derived from the song "They Call the Wind Maria", originally from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. She is the youngest of three children born to Patricia (née Hickey), a former opera singer and vocal coach of Irish descent, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer of both African-American and Afro-Venezuelan lineage. The last name "Carey" was adopted by her Venezuelan grandfather, Roberto Núñez, after he emigrated to New York.

Patricia's family disowned her for marrying a black man. Racial tensions prevented the Carey family from integrating into their community. While they lived in Huntington, their neighbors poisoned the family dog and set fire to their car. After her parents' divorce, Carey had little contact with her father and spent much of her time at home alone and began singing at age three, often imitating her mother's take on Verdi's opera Rigoletto in Italian. Her older sister Alison moved in with their father while Mariah and her elder brother Morgan lived with their mother.

During her years in elementary school, Carey excelled in the arts, such as music and literature. She began writing poetry and lyrics while attending Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, where she graduated in 1987. Carey began vocal training under her mother's guidance. Though she was a classically trained opera singer, Patricia Carey never pressured her daughter to pursue a career in classical opera, with Mariah Carey stating that "I respect opera like crazy, but it didn't influence me." In high school, Mariah Carey was often absent because of her work as a demo singer. Working in the Long Island music scene gave her opportunities to work with musicians such as Gavin Christopher and Ben Margulies, with whom she co-wrote material for her demo tape. After moving to New York City, she worked part-time jobs to pay the rent and completed 500 hours of beauty school. Carey moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan with four female students as roommates. She landed a gig singing backup for freestyle singer Brenda K. Starr.

Career

1988–1992: Eponymous debut album, Emotions and MTV Unplugged

In December 1988, Carey accompanied Starr to a music executive's party and handed her demo tape to the head of Columbia Records, Tommy Mottola. After listening to the tape during the ride home, he immediately requested the driver turn around. She had already left the event, and Mottola spent two weeks looking for her. Another record label expressed interest and a bidding war ensued. He signed Carey to Columbia and enlisted producers Ric Wake, Narada Michael Walden, and Rhett Lawrence for her first album.

On June 5, 1990, Carey made her first public appearance at the 1990 NBA Finals, singing "America the Beautiful". The highlight was the whistle note toward the song's conclusion, sparking CBS Sports anchor Pat O'Brien to declare, "The palace now has a queen." Columbia marketed Carey as the main female artist on their roster and spent over $1 million promoting Carey's debut studio album, Mariah Carey. The album topped the US Billboard 200 for eleven consecutive weeks, after Carey's exposure at the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards, where she won the award for Best New Artist, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her first single "Vision of Love". It became her first US Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, followed by the album's follow-up singles "Love Takes Time", "Someday", and "I Don't Wanna Cry". Mariah Carey was the best-selling album in the United States in 1991, and achieved worldwide sales of 15 million copies. Billboard named Carey the Greatest Pop Star of 1991.

Carey co-wrote, co-produced, and recorded her second studio effort, Emotions, during 1991. She described it as a homage to Motown soul music and employed the help of Walter Afanasieff, who only had a small role on her debut, as well as Robert Clivillés and David Cole, from the dance group C+C Music Factory. Carey's relationship with Margulies deteriorated over a songwriting royalties dispute. After he filed a lawsuit against Columbia's parent company, Sony Music Entertainment, the songwriting duo parted ways. Emotions was released on September 17, 1991. Its title track served as the album's lead single and became Carey's fifth chart topper on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first artist whose first five singles reached the chart's summit. The album spawned two more singles, "Can't Let Go" and "Make It Happen", both of which peaked within the top five in the United States. Though critics praised the album's content and described it as a more mature effort, Emotions was criticized as calculated and lacking originality. While the album managed sales of eight million copies globally, Emotions failed to reach the commercial and critical heights of its predecessor.

Carey did not embark on a world tour to promote the album. Although she attributed this to stage fright and the vocally challenging nature of her material, speculation grew that Carey was a "studio worm" and incapable of producing the perfect pitch and five-octave vocal range for which she was known. In hopes of ending any speculation of her being a manufactured artist, Carey booked an appearance on MTV Unplugged. Days prior to the show's taping, Carey and Afanasieff chose to add a cover of the Jackson 5's 1970 song "I'll Be There" to the set-list. On March 16, 1992, she played and recorded an intimate seven-song show at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York. The acclaimed revue was aired more than three times as often as the average episode, and critics heralding it as a "vocal Tour de force". Carey's live version of "I'll Be There" became her sixth number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Sony capitalized on this success and released an extended play (EP) of her performance. It earned a triple-Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and earned Gold and Platinum certifications in several European markets.